Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Asplenium rhizophyllum (syn. Camptosorus rhyzophyllus)
Description
One of Missouri’s most distinctive ferns, walking fern walks. Its long, triangular leaves take root at the elongated tips, forming new plantlets.
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Scientific Name
Pellaea atropurpurea
Description
Purple cliff brake is a fern that grows from crevices in limestone and dolomite rocks, or in rocky soils near them. Its leathery, blue-gray leaflets, which are oval to lance-shaped, make the fronds seem not very fernlike.
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Scientific Name
Pellaea glabella
Description
Smooth cliff brake is almost always seen growing out of an exposed limestone or dolomite bluff or rock. Its fronds, with blue-gray, lance-shaped, ovate, or oblong leaflets, are not very fernlike.
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Scientific Name
Ophioglossum spp.
Description
Four species of adder’s tongue ferns occur in Missouri. They don’t look like typical ferns. They have spoon-shaped leaves and an upright spore-bearing stalk.
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Scientific Name
Liatris aspera
Description
Rough blazing star is fairly common and scattered nearly statewide. To distinguish between Missouri’s nine species in the genus Liatris, start by noting details of the flower structure. It’s not hard when you know what to look for.
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Scientific Name
Sagittaria spp.
Description
Arrowheads are aquatic plants with erect, usually arrow-shaped leaves and distinctive three-petaled flowers. They are often called duck potatoes because ducks, geese, and swans relish the tuberlike rootstocks.
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Scientific Name
Andropogon gerardii
Description
Every Missourian should know big bluestem. It is the most famous of our native prairie grasses. The seed head of this tall grass branches into three parts, resembling a turkey’s foot.
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Scientific Name
Liatris pycnostachya
Description
Prairie blazing star has an unbranched stalk with many densely crowded, rose-purple flowerheads. It is a signature wildflower of the tallgrass prairie.
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Scientific Name
Gentiana andrewsii
Description
Closed gentian, or bottle gentian, never opens — it stays closed and budlike throughout the pollination process. How is it pollinated? Bumblebees push their way into the flowers!
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Scientific Name
Solidago ptermicoides (formerly Aster ptarmicoides)
Description
With its white, petal-like ray florets and pale disc florets, upland white goldenrod is truly the oddball of the goldenrods: it looks like a white-flowered aster. Indeed, it used to be considered an aster.
See Also
About Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants in Missouri
A very simple way of thinking about the green world is to divide the vascular plants into two groups: woody and nonwoody (or herbaceous). But this is an artificial division; many plant families include some species that are woody and some that are not. The diversity of nonwoody vascular plants is staggering! Think of all the ferns, grasses, sedges, lilies, peas, sunflowers, nightshades, milkweeds, mustards, mints, and mallows — weeds and wildflowers — and many more!